An information system is composed of various resources, such as hardware, software, and networks. With these components organically coupled to each other to achieve functions, operational objectives as a system are attained.
As such, resources that constitutes a system have become complex, while expectations for the system are growing with the advance of Information Technology (IT). There are concerns such that, for example, a flaw in system construction, a flaw in documents, and a flaw in work history may occur.
Meanwhile, as a database for managing information about resources that configure an information system by virtually unifying a plurality of types of database for managing information regarding hardware and software that configure the information system, a Federated Configuration Management Database (F-CMDB) has been known.
In recent years, by using such an F-CMDB, a verification for comparing the configuration at a design stage and the configuration at an implementation stage or a time-series comparison for comparing configurations between arbitrary points in time is performed to manage the configuration of an IT system.
However, for comparison of components in an information system, if attribute values of the respective components are stored in an F-CMDB in different formats or representations, components even with the same attribute values may be determined as not identical, thereby making it impossible to obtain a correct determination result.
For example, as depicted in FIG. 16, when a query for verification of an Operating System (OS) of a server is input by an administrator, “Windows XP Professional (registered trademark)” and “WinXP pro (registered trademark)” are obtained via Management Data Repositories (MDRs) and an F-CMDB as an attribute value at a design stage and an attribute value at an implementation stage, respectively. Although both components are in fact equivalent to each other, these components are determined as not identical due to different character strings.
Meanwhile, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2003-30257 discloses a product configuration management system in which a rule for summarizing product configurations before and after change is input by a product designer, a manufacturer, or the like, and abstraction is performed to sum up the relation among a plurality of components in the product by using the rule, thereby comparing product configurations before and after change.
The system disclosed in the patent gazette mentioned above, however, relegates creation of a rule for abstraction of product configurations to a person, such as a designer or a manufacturer. Therefore, enormous efforts are required to create the rule and, as a result, configuration comparison of an information system cannot be efficiently made.